I hope your offseason went better than mine in some respects. I was hoping to play in the nearly annual Pleasant Valley Invitational tournament in early October. I'd forgotten to pick up the trophy off of Mike Babinchak's desk at work, and I went back to the office the night before the tournament. Within a mile of my home on the way back I got a phone call from my wife. Our dog was only operating on three legs. I got vet duty the next morning which meant I had to hand the trophy off to Steve Hensley that morning on his way to winning the thing. My dog ended up with a trip to the surgeon and a long recovery and a big dent in my free time, a big dent in the bank account and normal mode of living.
I also had the joy of receiving a phone call from the commish, Brian Finley this winter. He got a letter or an email from a group of lawyers representing some meme generator who had noticed that I'd used one of their clients Hillary Clinton memes introducing one of my blogs. They were prepared to sue the league unless we ponied up $1600 toot sweet. Thanks to Brian's ability to plead our case that we were a golf league of limited resources and we were taking down the meme immediately, I think they've given up the lawsuit, but I've stashed away $1600 in case they come back. So, my first advice to all of you is that use pictures you pull off the internet with extreme caution. It also explains that there are very few graphics on this blog anymore - the exception being screen shots I've pulled from the USGA website, since I think they'd like us to use their graphics to promote the game and its rules. I think it's also the reason that Dave Edwards changed all of the graphics on the website to be either pictures of Ruggles or pictures he or friends have gathered over the years that have no copyright restrictions. Another headscratcher is that after revising all of my old posts and taking off any questionable graphics and reposting them, they are no longer in proper "date of writing" order. So, until I find a way to reorder them, this blog's not gonna make a whole lot of chronological sense.
But, I'm back to writing. Tonight was the REGL Captain's meeting and after a few loose ends are tied up, I'll be commenting on the 2024 changes to our league rules - especially focusing this year on all of our local rules that seem to expand each and every year despite efforts on some poor sods to reign them in... If I get through them, I'll continue my march through the USGA rule book.
Saw one of my fellow captains at the Wawa after the meeting tonight and we had a pleasant conversation about the league, rules and my blog. He was yet another guy who said he'd enjoyed reading it and got a lot out of reading it. It's encounters like that that make me less likely to give up doing it - despite attempts by lawyers to make it hurt in my wallet!
Another thing that was discussed while we were waiting for our sandwiches to be made was how much fun it is to play in our league, and how many good people we meet out there on the golf course, and how few jerks we encounter out there. Yeah, there are things that drive us crazy, we don't like, and perpetually grind our gears, but on balance, playing 9 holes of competitive golf can be a great respite from the daily grind of life, and it's good to appreciate a good thing. Let's hope each of you can this season, win, lose or draw.